Front Page and Structure

Visitors should be immediately directed to the section corresponding to their knowledge, skillset, particular interest.

Contributors should know where their articles go and have a place to link them from.

Feel free to change or to restore Matthew's structure, if you feel it is better suited to future development. In any case, smaller articles should be moved off the front page and added to the respective pages linked to with "More ...". More in-depth stuff can be moved to the front page. This is a draft still. --serendipity 16:06, 16 Dec 2004 (GMT)

Chris, I like the "Troubleshooting" section, and the way you've incorporated hacking WordPress into a general customization-related section. (I was intending to do the latter, but I hadn't found a good name for the section yet.) However, there are a few problems with the design:

Despite there being fewer categories, they take up more space than the previous list, requiring more scrolling (and I think people will resort to the search field rather than scrolling, making everything below the fold a waste of time). This is partly because of the borders and padding around each section, and partly because too many example pages are advertised for each section. (Compare with ODP and vintage Yahoo.)

The borders also look messy where adjacent sections are different sizes.

The multiple "More..." links are both poor for accessibility and unnecessarily small click targets, compared with the entire headers which were linked before.

Thanks for the critique. Much of what you point to is well taken and can easily be fiddled with later (eg, "I lost my password" and "I can't login" are on the front page only so that someone writes them :) . Margins, paddings, etc. aren't ideal. Had to scroll on the previous version, too, and no-scroll is the target. But since the entire Codex style sheet is under discussion, this, too, will be sorted out.

I don't agree with you on the "More ... " links. If there's a (finite, nonn-open) list of sub-headers under a header ppl won't assume that there are other rubrics hidden when you click on the header. OTOH, thes W3 page is quite a point in favour of "More..." links since the headline makes it clear what the link holds more of (they have ""more information about sea lions".) It's a small click target, that's true. As for the old-style caps: We Had No Choice :) . I don't use them in my stuff, but they were adopted as a Codex convention before my time. --serendipity 10:40, 17 Dec 2004 (GMT)

"More information about Design and formatting" would be ok, but "More..." by itself is useless to those browsing a list of links in the current page (as is often done with accessibility aids, for example). And for a decade people have used Yahoo, ODP, Google Directory, and other sites which use header-as-link. Changing back. -- Matthew Thomas 05:26, 18 Dec 2004 (GMT)

Any chance of replacing the MediaWiki logo with a bit of WordPress Codex Branding? I visit many wikis and you do sometimes forget where you are. It's a simple '.png' file change too.--User Rparker 09:20, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Subsection page structure

I think it might be more useful if the pages that are linked to from the "more..." in each section list the items that are on the main page in that section first, followed by the other items missing on the front page. WordPress Basics would thus have links to the pages linked-to in the wordpress basics section in the front page, and then some more, down below.

I was popping in here to say the VERY SAME THING. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to click on the "more" and find two things when there were a whole lot more on the list I just left. I can work on it, but I'm on the road and only able to do minor edits of a few minutes at a time - at least for the next week or so. If it isn't fixed by then, I'll give it a go.

The bullet separated lists certainly take up less space, thereby keeping as much above the fold as possible, but I think they're harder to scan than traditional lists. If traditional lists are better, it might be possible to go for a three coloumn layout instead of two to minimize scrolling (or it might not - maybe it'd look heinous). Thoughts? --MDAWaffe 22:41, 13 Feb 2005 (GMT)

Italian Translation

It's few weeks I've set up a WordPress Wiki in Italian, i already write about it on the old WP WIk, would be nice to have a link to it in the translation bar on this main page too.

We use a different engine, so it won't be a clone of the english one, if any of the admin think it would be better have a site based on MediaWiki I can see to arrange a setup.

Thanks in advance - --User SteveAgl 18:32, 20 Feb 2005 (GMT)

Feel free to add a link in the translation bar, or leave a link here and someone will add it to it.

I am blind...blind tired. I should have known this cuz I helped format this stuff...Lorelle - go to bed. And I think I'm on the docs mailing list...I just haven't had time to check email for a couple of days....bad girl...Lorelle 04:20, 23 Feb 2005 (GMT)

The Feature Wishlist ?

Could anybody tell me if the Feature Wishlist has already been transferred, or can I copy and paste ? Thijs 18:32, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I certainly like the look of the » links over the section title links. It really was too blue - a bit hard to read. The problem is that they "mess up" the #anchors: Main Page#Working with WordPress doesn't work. You have to use Main Page#WordPress_Basics .C2.BB. Perhaps this is OK on the main page, where there is little scrolling needed. It should never be done on any other page, though. --MDAWaffe - Talk 07:01, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think this is fine for the main page; section headers on the main page contain no content other than links, and therefore should rarely need to be linked to directly, if ever. — morganiq 08:41, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I like it but I don't like the underline on the title with the horizontal line under it. Kinda cluttered. And redundant. I know this is hard coded, but I'd really like to see the hover be really strong, maybe bringing an underline or turning red or something that is really clear and obvious that this is a link. I didn't like the little arrows, especially those with the underline. Keep it clear and simple and clean.

One more thing. Now that we have just a few solid "categories", I'd like to see them added to the sidebar. I keep clicking back to main page and then clicking the different menus which would save time if the main menus were listed in the sidebar. Just a little more navigation help for the user. 14:59, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Announcements Section

I think that section needs more prominence, which is why it was given a distinct background colour. Also, I'm wondering if we shouldn't protect the main page so that it can't be spammed/vandalised?

I agree with both: red looked good and protection seems wise. Of course, spam on the main page is easy for everyone to catch. If we protect the main page, we'll still have as many spammers, but they'll hit pages not everyone looks at. You'll have to check out Recent Changes to find them. I do that anyway, but a more casual user might revert spam on a page the happen to see (Main Page), but might not bother to look elsewhere for spam. Just a thought, probably not an important one. --MDAWaffe - Talk 07:01, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I had intended to experiment with moving things around such that Announcements could be separated from the section headers, but I haven't been able to come up with anything good yet. I've switched back to the maroon look for now.

Regarding protection of the main page: Assuming our traffic continues to grow, we'll have to protect it at some point, but I don't think now's the time for it. The Codex is still under heavy enough construction that it would be more of an inconvenience to have to submit requests to sysadmins for main page changes than it is currently to remove spam. I think we have low enough traffic that we're not a high spam target, and high enough traffic that we have enough eyes to keep it in check. So I'd vote no on the main page protection — for now.